6th Pan African Re/Insurance Journalism Awards Entries are Open

Business journalists from across Africa are invited to submit, within the next three months, entries for the 6th edition of the Pan African Re/Insurance Journalism Awards.

The Awards are sponsored by a leading Pan African reinsurance firm, Continental Reinsurance Plc and seek to recognize journalists who report on insurance in print, online and electronic media. 

Similar to past editions, the 2021 Awards are open to all business journalists from anglophone and francophone countries. Interested candidates should submit their entries between October 1st and December 31st, 2020 via the following link.

Dr Femi Oyetunji, Group Managing Director, Continental Reinsurance Plc commented, “We are expecting to receive more entries from across the continent, especially from the francophone markets.  We particularly look forward to insightful pieces of how the insurance sector has been responding to COVID-19.  Further, we encourage more female journalists to participate,” he noted.

Among the participation guidelines, only articles published or aired between December 1st 2019 to December 31st 2020 are eligible for entry.  Other guidelines can be accessed on the awards page.

The 2021 Awards Categories are: 

1. Best Re/Insurance Print Article – English.
2. Best Re/Insurance Broadcast (TV/Radio) Article – English.
3. Best Re/Insurance Online Article – English.
4. Best Re/Insurance Article (TV, Radio & Print, Online) – French.

The Awards have for the past five years, recognised and mentored 17 winners on insurance reporting through various editions. 

Patrick Alushula, winner of the 2019 Pan-African Journalist of the Year category, had this to say, ”There is much more to just winning the top prize. I found the year-long mentorship program by Commercial Risk Africa very useful in enriching my reporting with new perspectives.  The mentorship has helped me deepen my understanding of writing insurance stories that offer rich and articulated context and with simplicity to bring impact.”

”Developing interest in global issues such as climate change and pandemics and understanding how they impact the local market is one thing I had never given deep thought prior to this mentorship,” he added.

An independent panel of judges, consisting of international business, media and insurance specialists will assess all the 2021 entries based on the judging criteria. In the fifth edition (2020), the judges picked five winners from 77 entries that were received from 15 countries